Cult Movies: The Man From UNCLE star David McCallum was always a cut above

IN THE week that he’s turned 90, it’s worth remembering the hugely impressive cult credentials of David McCallum.

If all the Glasgow-born actor had given us in his career was his turn as the cool , blonde mop-topped superspy Illya Kuryakin in The Man From UNCLE, it would be reason enough to clear a space for him at the top table of cult.

That breakthrough TV role made the aloof-looking leading man a massive star and a genuine sex symbol Stateside and beyond in the 1960s, and also led to him making a quartet of really pretty fabulous instrumental albums with producer David Axelrod from 1966 onwards, but UNCLE is only one credit in a career peppered with unforgettable performances on screens big and small.

At the cinema, he clocked-up an impressive array of appearances in films for the Rank organisation in the 1950s. Look out for him in minor supporting roles in everything from Cy Enfield’s peerless British truck driving fable Hell Drivers, where he plays the young disabled brother of leading man Stanley Baker, to his turn as fresh faced radio operator Harold Bride in the best film ever to be made about the sinking of the Titanic, Roy Ward Baker’s fabulous A Night To Remember from 1958. 

The young David McCallum stars in Violent Playground His boyish good looks but everyman demeanour won him memorable roles in films like Violent Playground (1958) and The Great Escape (1963) where he played Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt. Significant as his big screen appearances have been down the decades, it’s the contributions he’s made to cult television that really set him apart for me.

Besides that ultra-smooth Man From UNCLE role – no one could wear a black poloneck quite like Ilya Kuryakin – there are unforgettable appearances in the likes of Colditz and a revamp of The Invisible Man that graced telly screens, albeit briefly, in the 1980s. 

 The greatest of McCallum’s roles for me, though, came with Sapphire And Steel, an impressively odd and edgy TV sci-fi series that ran between 1979 and 1982. His creation of the cranky, moody and often downright rude Steel, who with Joanna Lumley’s slinky Sapphire by his side, set about solving dangerous rips in the dimensions of time and scaring the bejesus out of young telly audiences in the process, is a pure delight from start to finish.

Everything about that performance, from David’s taciturn but magnetic personality to his attractively dour Scottish demeanour, set him apart from the US TV heroes of the era. As great British screen actors go, he’s up there with the very best, in my opinion.

That he would go on to enjoy a further wave of well-deserved love from the viewing public late in his acting career with his role as Dr Donald ‘Ducky’ Mallard in NCIS only adds to his remarkable story.

Other more flashy and showbiz-friendly actors may get more acclaim, but few can hold a candle to McCallum – and the fact that he still walks among us is a reason to celebrate, if you ask me.